Independent Frames: American Experimental Animation in the 1970s and 1980s

Bodymania

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From
morphing bodies engaged in rapturous copulation (Desire Pie) to disembodied parts (The Club, Seed Reel), artists respond to the waning sexual
revolution and the women’s movement, expressing agency and stimulation while at
the same time depicting complex forms of desire.

Post-screening
discussion with Lisa Crafts.

Total running time approx. 72 mins.

Whitney
Commercial

Suzan
Pitt, 1973, 16mm, 3 min, color, sound

Pesca
Pisca

Irene
Duga, 1968, 16mm, 3 min color, sound

Bust Bag

Don
Duga, 1964, 16mm, 6 min, color, sound

Tub Film

Mary
Beams, 1972, digital, 2 min, color, sound

Seed
Reel

Mary
Beams, 1975, 16mm, 4 min, color, sound

The Club

George
Griffin, 1975, digital, 4 min, color, sound

Odalisque

Maureen
Selwood, 1980, digital, 12 min, color, sound

Desire
Pie

Lisa
Crafts, 1976, 16mm, 5 min, color, sound

Crocus

Suzan
Pitt, 1971, 16mm, 7 min, color, sound

Flesh
Flows

Adam
Beckett, 1974, 16mm, 6 min, color, sound

Asparagus

Suzan
Pitt, 1979, 35mm, 20 min, color, sound

Lisa Crafts is an animator and moving image artist based
in New York, where she teaches in the Film and Video Department at the Pratt
Institute. Her 1976 film Desire Pie
was a pivotal work in the field of American independent and experimental
animation, expressing humor, fantasy and sexuality in a complex and
entertaining way. The film was restored in 2008 through the Women’s Film
Preservation Fund by New York Women in Film and Television, who also selected
her 1982 film Glass Gardens for
restoration. Lisa Crafts’ work over the decades has focused on environmental
uncertainty, sexuality, creativity and chaos. She has screened widely and
received numerous grants and fellowships. In December 2017, she worked with
students at the Pratt Institute to realize BLINK,
BURN, a multimedia performance and collaboration with the New World
Symphony which premiered at Art Basel Miami Beach.

Independent Frames is
supported by the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation and the Cinema
Studies Department at the University of Pennsylvania

Independent Frames: American Experimental Animation in
the 1970s + 1980s

This series examines the work of a group of American artists
who approached film through independently-produced, frame-by-frame animations
in the 1970s and 80s. Made primarily by artists with no formal animation
training, the selection of films in this programme incorporates autobiography,
visual fantasy, abstraction, medium specificity and biting satire. Several
works were broadcast at the time and others distributed on home video,
affording these artists a level of success and reach beyond that which other
artist-filmmakers of their era could attain. Building on the work of earlier
generations of experimental animators such as Mary Ellen Bute, Standish Lawder,
Harry Smith and Stan Vanderbeek – some of whose works are included in these
screenings – this new generation of filmmakers elaborated on inherited
techniques and proceeded to pioneer their own. Some artists explored cel and
hand-drawn animation (Sally Cruikshank, Suzan Pitt, Mary Beams) while others
explored new directions in kinetic collage (Frank Mouris, Paul Glabicki). Some
used flicker and abstraction (Robert Russett, Adam Beckett, Barry Spinello) and
others explored the affective potential of film through psychedelic fantasy
(Sky David, Lisa Crafts). Through five screening programmes, Independent
Frames: American Experimental Animation in the 1970s + 1980s highlights themes
of the body and sexuality, abstraction and psychedelia, structure and
composition, autobiographical reflection and the influence of commercial
animation. Lending historical context to recent developments in both animation
studies and the role of animation in contemporary art, the series is a timely
investigation of this era of invention and energy in experimental animation,
suggesting a landscape of artists whose work needs to be considered anew.